xawtv(1)
NAME
xawtv - a X11 program for watching TV
SYNOPSIS
xawtv [ options ] [ station name ]
DESCRIPTION
xawtv is a X11 application for watching TV with your unix box. It uses the Athena widgets.
OPTIONS
All command line options also have a Resource, so you can put them into
your .Xdefaults file too.
-h, -help
Print a short description of all command line options.
-hwscan
Print a list of available devices.
-f, -fullscreen
startup in fullscreen mode.
Resource: xawtv.fullscreen (bool).
-n, -noconf
don't read the config file ($HOME/.xawtv).
Resource: xawtv.readconfig (bool).
-o, -outfile base
set basestring for the snapshot output files. The filename will
be "base-timestamp-nr.ext".
Resource: xawtv.basename (string).
-c, -device device
set video4linux device (default is /dev/video0). This option
also disables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.device (string).
-D, -driver name
set video4linux driver (default is "libv4l"). This option also
disables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.driver (string).
-C, -dspdev device
set audio device (default is /dev/dsp).
Resource: xawtv.dspdev (string).
-vbidev device
set vbi device (default is /dev/vbi0).
Resource: xawtv.vbidev (string).
-c, -xvport number
set Xvideo port (defaults to the first usable if Xvideo is
available). This option also enables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.xvport (int).
-joydev device
joystick device to use for controlling xawtv.
Resource: xawtv.joydev (string).
-v, -debug level
Be verbose, level may be 0 (default), 1 or 2. It exists just
for debugging and trouble-shooting.
Resource: xawtv.debug (int).
-remote
X11 display is remote. This basically disables overlay mode,
you might need this if xawtv fails to autodetect a remote X11
display.
Resource: xawtv.remote (bool).
-b, -bpp n
force xawtv into n bpp color depth. Works for switching between
15/16 and 24/32 bpp. This gets just passed through to v4l-
conf(8).
Resource: xawtv.bpp (int).
-shift n
Shift the video display by n bytes. Try this if your video
display isn't within the xawtv window, some older matrox cards
show this problem. This gets passed through to v4l-conf(8) too.
Resource: xawtv.shift (int).
-fb Use the framebuffer device to determine the video framebuffer
address (instead of the DGA extension). Yet another pass
through argument.
Resource: xawtv.fbdev (bool).
-xv/-noxv
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension altogether,
i.e. -noxv has the same effect as both -noxv-video and -noxv-
image switches (see below).
Resource: xawtv.xv (bool).
-xv-video/-noxv-video
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for video
overlay (i.e. XvPutVideo). overlay mode uses this. default is
on.
Resource: xawtv.xvVideo (bool).
-xv-image/-noxv-image
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for image
scaling (i.e. XvPutImage). grabdisplay mode uses this. default
is on.
Resource: xawtv.xvImage (bool).
-vm/-novm
enable/disable the usage of the VidMode extension, default is
off. If there is a fullscreen video mode configured in the
config file, the vidmode extension will be enabled
automatically.
Resource: xawtv.vidmode (bool).
-dga/-nodga
enable/disable the usage of the DGA extension, default is on.
Resource: xawtv.dga (bool).
-parallel n
use n compression threads (default: one).
Resource: xawtv.parallel (int).
The usual toolkit options like -geometry are supported too.
SUPPORTED HARDWARE / INTERFACES
v4l2 video4linux two - modern standard linux video capture API
libv4l work through the libv4l library, which provides an additional
thin layer on top of video4linux2 devices for support of more
wide range of devices' pixel formats (often required for webcams
etc.) It is default for Xawtv on Linux systems.
bktr FreeBSD / OpenBSD driver for bt848/878 grabber cards.
Xvideo X11 Extension for video devices. Note that the Xvideo extension
does support overlay only, you can't capture images/movies if
the Xvideo extension is used. On the other hand this is the
only way to scaled video overlay (i.e. fullscreen without black
borders @ 1024x748) if both hardware and xfree86 driver support
it. See README.xfree4 for more details and hints on how to
setup Xvideo.
GETTING STARTED
Just start xawtv. Then verify the settings in the options menu (right mouse button) and adjust the settings (TV norm, Video source, frequency table). With the cursor keys you can control the tuner and look for TV Stations. Other useful hotkeys are listed below. The hotkey 'E' will show the channel editor where you can create/edit entries your TV stations. Don't forget to click on "save" to write a config file. You can also create/edit a config file with any text editor, see xawtvrc(5) for a description of the config file syntax. There are a number of config options which can only be set by editing the config file. You can also check out scantv. That's a command line tool which will perform a channel scan and write out a xawtv config file with all channels it has found. Mouse functions The left mouse button will popup a menu with all TV stations found in the config file. The middle button switches to the next station. The right button brings up a window with a lot of options and control functions. Keyboard Shortcuts V Video (Capture) on/off A Audio on/off F Fullscreen on/off G Grab picture (full size, ppm) J Grab picture (full size, jpeg) Ctrl+G Grab picture (window size, ppm) Ctrl+J Grab picture (window size, jpeg) O Popup Options Window C Popup Channels Window E Popup Channel Editor R Popup AVI Recording Window Z Channel Hopper (zapping, tune in every station a few seconds) Ctrl+Z Fast Channel Hopping (grab the images for the Channel Buttons) up/down tune up/down one channel left/right fine tuning pgup/pgdown station up/down (the ones you have in the config file) space next station (same as pgup) backspace previously tuned station Ctrl+up scan for next station F5-F12 adjust bright/hue/contrast/color ESC,Q Quit +/- Volume up/down (keypad) Enter mute (keypad)
BUGS
Bug reports with images attached go to /dev/null unseen. xawtv depends on a correct driver configuration. If you can't tune TV stations even if the settings in the options window are correct it is very likely a driver issue. The mono/stereo display is not reliable due to v4l API restrictions. The API can not report back the current audio mode, but a list of the currently available modes. xawtv just does a guess based on that, assuming the driver uses the best available mode. Depending on your hardware this might not be true. If in doubt whenever stereo really works, please tune in MTV and listen, don't trust what xawtv says.
SEE ALSO
xawtvrc(5), fbtv(1), v4l-conf(8), scantv(1) http://bytesex.org/xawtv/ (homepage)
AUTHOR
Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
MISC
You are the 4711th visitor of this page.
(c) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr xawtv(1)
Opportunity
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
Free Books
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Education
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.
